AMD Radeon RX 480 local price might not be R6,000

21 June 2016

By Wesley "CataclysmZA" Fick

Over at MyGaming, our friends reported that a source told them the upcoming Radeon RX 480 graphics cards might cost around R6,000 for the 8GB versions. While that price is certainly plausible given our current economic situation I’m quite certain that most cards will retail for less – some even at the R5,000 mark, if we’re lucky. I asked some of my “Industry Sources™” about the local pricing issue, and the responses were quite positive. I also looked at local pricing, and everything’s been collected in a table for you to agonise over while you wait for month-end. Onward!

“Regarding the price indicated, I think R6,000 may be the top-end of the spectrum,” said one source. “I don’t know if AMD has even confirmed with AIBs what the final price will be, because only the MSRPs are confirmed, which is the price the consumer is expected to pay.”

Both sources also confirmed that stock would be available on launch day, 29 June, and that cards would be available in enough quantities that shortages shouldn’t be a major issue. One of the sources also hinted that the Radeon RX 470 and RX 460, both set to be cheaper than the RX 480, could be launching sometime in July 2016. No pricing was available for those cards, but I’d take a guess that the RX 470 falls around the R3,500 price point, while the RX 460 settles in at around R2,000, replacing the retiring Radeon R7 360.

As for actual pricing on the Radeon RX 480, both sources confirmed that R6,000 is expected for some brands, but not all of them. Sapphire’s RX 480 should retail for R5,650, VAT inclusive, when the dust settles after sales open. Gigabyte and ASUS climb a bit higher to R5,899, though this is still way cheaper than the GeForce GTX 1070.

Unfortunately, there’s a bit of a snag regarding the use of back plates and DVI connectors. Most of the reference models shipping this month won’t have those – instead an adapter supplied by AMD will be included in the box to swap HDMI for DVI (Displayport for DVI would be more preferable, though). I would assume that AMD’s closest partners like XFX and Sapphire will ship with a backplate, but ASUS and Gigabyte might not. These issues will become clearer once the cards are on sale.

Separately, I also asked Wootware’s Rory Magee if they’d be importing the PowerColor brand once more, and he replied in the positive. “We will be getting PowerColor GPUs, and we will expect to have them at launch as well (or very near to launch),” said Magee. “We should definitely have some very competitive pricing, though we aren’t able to confirm in advance.”

Given Wootware’s past pricing with PowerColor compared to the other brands in the country, I think we’re looking at R5,199 or thereabouts for the 8GB reference model, and R4,899 for the 4GB model. It’s a thumbsuck at this point, admittedly, but the PowerColor brand has been at times almost R1,000 cheaper than other GPUs on the market, and with comparable quality when you consider the Devil editions. That’s the benefit of importing the hardware yourself, I guess (hint, hint!).

To help make this all a bit easier to bear, let’s take a quick look at the GPU market with the three confirmed prices for the RX 480 thrown in the mix. Where prices are listed for other specific GPUs, I’m using the price for the cheapest card in stock today (21 June 2016), with exception to the GTX 1070 and Radeon R9 390 (now discontinued by AMD). One asterisk next to the price for the R9 390 or GTX 1070 indicates that it’s actually in stock at that price.

I’m not at all surprised how things have turned out so far. General availability of the GTX 1070 is so low that it’s basically nonexistent at this point, though you can buy one right this minute from Titan-Ice. Raru lists their stock coming in on 15 July, more than a full three weeks away. The only real surprise is that super-cheap R9 390X from Wootware. That’s a killer price for a GPU of that pedigree.

The arrival of the GTX 1070 doesn’t upset the cart too much, which is an interesting turn of events. It doesn’t displace the GTX 970 at a similar price, something that happened in the US and overseas markets, and it’s only going to be really disruptive to sales of the GTX 980, the Radeon R9 390X and the Radeon R9 Fury. There’s a chance that R9 390X cards will get a price drop to clear stocks ahead of the GTX 1070’s general availability locally, but it’s an interesting dynamic nonetheless. There’s still a place in the market for the GTX 970 at this moment.

Of course, the minute the Radeon RX 480 arrives, it’s all over for the existing mid-range GPUs. It’ll cannibalise sales of the R9 390 (though much of the stock is gone) and it’ll make short work of the GTX 970, especially if it turns out to be around the performance of the faster Radeon R9 390. Radeon R9 380X sales will also see a drop, as people will rationalise that saving some more to get a card that’s just over twice as powerful is a better idea, even if you end up with the reference cooler design in the launch window.

You might even see GTX 960 sales and prices take a nosedive as potential owners realise the benefits of going the same route. There’s no GTX 960 replacement on the horizon for a good few months, and NVIDIA hasn’t made any noise about the GTX 1060 yet.

The Radeon RX 480 may be priced more than you’d expect at launch, but it’s in line with our current market conditions. No, it isn’t overpriced. No, we’re not being price gouged. This is simply the reality of being at the bottom of Africa, approximately 16,400 kilometres away from Sunnyvale, California – everything we import is more expensive than if we had to produce and ship it locally.

AMD’s Radeon RX 480 is based on the company’s next-generation GCN architecture called Polaris, and is expected to launch across the world on 29 June 2016. The 4GB reference model has a recommended price of $199 in the United States, and $229 for the 8GB model in the same region.

It more or less matches its market position in the US, so I think it’s at the right price for our economic situation taking our location into account as well. It’s not a fantastic price, but I think it’s quite reasonable. I would love to know what the distributor mark-up is though. That would influence things quite a bit.

Jev_LFC

Yep but as an example I won a Cryorig CPU cooler and the import duties were like R30 from Singapore. Value R1800/Weight 2.5kgs, so import duties for these dealers is minimal at best. Markup must be 20-40%.

Was it actually valued by the sender at R1800? I remember getting a Thermaltake CPU cooler for review and I had to pay R50 for the fees when getting it, but the value of the fan was marked down to $50.

TBH we are not getting ripped off. I do wish retailers would take the time to explain why South African pricing is the way it is. Our situation isn’t unique and much larger countries with greater volumes sometimes pay far more than SA. For instance GTX 1080 in Australian retail outlets is $1,200USD. In SA however it’s around $950 or so for the vast majority of cards.

Whatever happens, the RX480 is going to put massive upward pressure on all cards that exist currently. 390 and so forth have seized production and rightly so as they are outclassed by Polaris and cost too much in comparison to keep producing. Even at the higher pricing, never before have we had this level of performance at this price. Remember that these are GTX 980 matching/beating GPUs for R7,000 to R8,000.

I’m inclined to agree. Where possible, the local retailers try to accommodate our market conditions and account for them in some other way. The PS4 is still $350 in the US, for example. Today, that translates to around R5200. Specials going on this week put a 500GB console with Uncharted 4 at R6199. That’s really not a bad mark-up at all. The only real issue is game prices, which are going for above the current exchange rate. R1099 RRPs for PS4 and Xbox One titles are a reality due to the fact that we have to ship everything in.

DecimationPro

We have 4 major problems with GPU’s:
1) We import far less then other countries and shipping costs.
2) Somehow consoles seem to get lower import duties (or are brought in at a lower price)
3) US prices exclude Vat. We pay 14% Vat. $240+14% is $273.60 US and at an exchange rate of ~15/1 it means that even at direct exchange prices the 8GB RX 480 would be over 4000 ZAR so we are only paying 1/5 on the MSRP.
4) Middle men, such as separately owned branches of the official GPU brands add an extra few %.

leon coetzee

I think those prices are based on its perceived performance

If you can use a rule of thumb if you can get a 1080 for R13000 wootware
That is 650$ x20. Using the same rule 200$ should be closer to 4000

Pc parts only carry vat no duties

We have just gotten so accustomed to BS in SA that nobody bats an eye when being fed

AMD did indeed price their cards according to the market conditions. Would the RX 480 have sold as well at $299 and $329? Maybe, but the gap between it at the GTX 1070 is now closer, and it’s a small jump for what’s promised to be higher performance. $199 is rather disruptive and still gives them and their partners profit, IMO.

PC parts do carry VAT, correct, but there are other charges added on. There’s an added tax value that’s put into the picture by SARS, which determines the ATV (Added Tax Value). You add 10% of the customs declared value to the price to arrive at the ATV, and then add VAT. Applies for electronics just like any other type of goods.

Using that math: (R3015 ($200 converted) + 10%) + 14% = R4124.52

Then add in shipping costs, which can be substantial, and add on the distributor mark-up, then the shop’s mark-up (could be +8%, +15%, and +15% respectively, for example), and you end up with a shelf price of R5891.

Taking the fact that the prices for the RX 480 are RRPs for the US and not the cost price, I think it’s quite reasonable to expect that distributors locally are paying $200, or thereabouts for the RX 480 8GB models. My math above doesn’t take into account how VAT is applied locally – I’m no economist, and it’s been ages since I worked in retail doing pricing for products. Most retailers would jump at the chance of charging 15% profits on the items they sell, but I think it happens rarely now.

Still, I don’t think it’s as much bull as people have been implying, and merely a function of our position on this continent and our crappy exchange rate.

leon coetzee

Yes i agree with about all of your opinions
Regarding add-on on top of the 200$ price

But the same would then apply to gtx1080 and that is 3.5 times the 200$ price

So 5800 local selling price for rx480. X3.5 would mean the cheapest 1080 should be 20 300

Which its not so these prices are to limit losses on old stock and may be better when thats cleared

The rx480 is being released at tbe price gtx960 was released so it should be sold at gtx960 prices

Eh, I don’t really know. It’s all much of a muchness. These are the prices and this is what the retailers think we’re willing to pay. I’m going to keep an eye on how soon the price drops, and I hope it comes soon.

leon coetzee

Yes since not officialy released, stress may be pointless. It may be correctly priced on launch

If priced like suggested
I will be importing when it comes to buying

As the only reason to buy local is not to have to pay overseas shipping for failure

The mark-up is so drastic that the saving will pay and then some

And how often have you had problems on a brand new card
Except when buying a brand like ninja or the likes

Johnny

Why anybody would pay for a Gtx 1070 is beyond me. Just buy 2 RX480’s and “SLI” them and you’ve got something better than a 1070 and it’s cheaper.

Multi GPu solutions are on their way out. NVIDIA has already started weening resources off Multi GPu support and AMD will follow soon. The issue being that with DirectX12, it is increasingly hard to optimize for multi-GPU titles at run time. It is either built in by the developer or essentially not available at all. Since it is developer dependent, it means explicit multi-GPU rendering must be targeted and how many games going forward will be built around this?

Also, x2 RX480s will cost you significantly more than a single FTX 1070, more than a FT 1080 actually. GTX 1070 @ Wootware can be had for R8,300~ while you’re looking at over R6,000 for each RX480.

Unless you’re only playing games with good Crossfire support, I don’t think a lot of people are going to be doing this now. I don’t think it makes a lot of sense now given that our DX12 and Vulkan landscape is so barren, and developers have to figure out multi-GPU in a way that benefits the player experience.

But in the future, it’ll expand in this direction. It has to, Moore’s law will bring about another extended stay at 16nm, and at 7nm, we’ll have to move to multi-chip modules on a single die to avoid the issues with producing parts on such a small scale.

leon coetzee

Yes leave the r9 380 4gb 199$ out of the group that launched at the same price as the rx480 4gb 199$ which the rx480 replaces
And the gtx960 also launched at 199$

And could be had from 3600 up yet the rx480 wil be priced in gtx970 ball park that started at just over starting price of 5300 and up at launch 329$ and up in the us

Yes exchange rates i know some will say so what was the prices of those cards beginning of the year when we had an exchange slump

Peregrin

If you import a card RX480 via Amazon It costs R4400 including import fees and shipping.
So thats at RRP. I assume someone in the local chain is decided to do the same as some of the guys in the US and see what the market will bear.

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